Belonging is a feeling—the extent to which employees can show up to work fully without having to sacrifice meaningful aspects of their identity. Microaggressions are the everyday moments that cause belonging breakdowns. This map by Erin L. Thomas, PhD, Upwork's VP, Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, shows the typical Belonging Breakdown Journey for anyone who’s relatively “different” in a company. Different means non-prototypical, or not the norm.

1. Belonging Breakdown Journey
1 Someone “different”
JOINS the company
• New identity
• New role
• New pedigree
• New style
EXTERNAL DIFFERENCE TAX
TOKENIZATION
• We encourage the difference
• They feel welcome, needed, and engaged, but
possibly also uncertain, skeptical or untrusting
2 Courtship
INTERNAL DIFFERENCE TAX
• Only person like them in meetings and/or don’t see people like them
in leadership
• Difference feels under-optimized or exploited
• Tries to work within existing norms and structures by:
• Mustering courage to point our issues and concerns and pushing
or accountability OR
• Withholding their input, putting their head down and assimilating
3
Reality
VALIDATIONS
• We minimize, ignore, deny or refuse to see
the issues or difference tax OR
• We expect the “different” person to explain
their taxing reality, teach us how to improve
and/or fix the issues themself (on top of the
work they were hired to do)
• We remain unaware of the existence or magnitude
of issues or difference tax OR
• We decide the issues are the person’s, not ours OR
• We decide that we can’t afford the time or attention
to fix the issues
A person is harmed, and the organization
remains unchanged demographically,
operationally, and culturally
• Voluntarily because the costs > benefits
• Involuntarily because we decided they
weren’t a “good fit” or the difference tax
objectively impaired their performance
45
7
6 The “different” employee
LEAVES the company
ResponseRejection
End result